“Alphabet steigt. Meta fällt. Microsoft & Amazon ok.” - Adidas, Öl, Robinhood & Wetten

The episode opens with a recap of Adidas, which rose 5% after reporting 14% currency-neutral revenue growth, with clothing up 30% (partly driven by World Cup jersey sales pushing football sector growth to 50%) versus Nike's flat or shrinking quarter. The host notes uncertainty around whether Adidas's growth is sustainable beyond WM-related tailwinds, reflected in its 27 billion euro valuation against 2.3 billion in expected operating profit.

Deutsche Bank reported a record net profit of 2.2 billion euros but missed elevated expectations, while Mercedes-Benz posted its weakest profit since early COVID — yet both stocks fell slightly. Deutsche Bank's drop was attributed to higher-than-expected credit risk provisions, while Mercedes management expressed optimism about 40 new models launching between 2025 and 2027.

Among deals, Finnish elevator company Kone announced a 29 billion euro acquisition — notable given the company itself is only worth around 30 billion euros, raising concerns about execution risk. Booking.com lowered its growth forecast due to the Iran war, while GE Healthcare warned of $250 million in additional costs from oil, freight, and rising storage chip prices, sending its stock down over 10%. Conversely, hard drive maker Seagate rose 10% on the day (having already doubled in 2025), NXP Semiconductors surged 25%, and Starbucks gained 10% as its new CEO's turnaround showed 6% same-store sales growth driven by order volume rather than price hikes.

The oil price rose over 5% after Trump signaled the Strait of Hormuz blockade would likely persist. The U.S. Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged, but the decision featured the most divided opinions among central bankers since 1992, highlighting the difficulty of the current macroeconomic assessment.

In big tech earnings: Meta grew revenue 33% (up from 24% last quarter), adding $14 billion in sales — twice Snapchat's total annual revenue in a single quarter. Amazon's AWS cloud grew 28%, matching 2022 levels, but higher-than-expected capital expenditures sent the stock slightly negative. Microsoft's Azure grew 39%, marginally above expectations, but on a day of stronger beats elsewhere, it too dipped. Alphabet was the clear winner, with 60% cloud growth, an operating margin of 33% (well above expectations), in-line capex, and Google Search revenue up 19%. Alphabet's stock rose over 5% after hours. Amazon's advertising business — often overlooked — now generates $17 billion per quarter, nearly twice YouTube's ad revenue. Qualcomm rose 10% after hinting at a chip deal with a major hyperscaler.

A Bloomberg analysis of Polymarket since early 2025 found over 100,000 accounts lost more than $1,000 each, while fewer than 50,000 profited over $1,000. Automated bots collectively profited while all other users combined lost $131 million — because bots close winning bets faster at better odds. The host concludes prediction markets are primarily profitable for platform operators and sophisticated bot builders.

Robinhood's Q1 results revealed prediction markets were mentioned only 9 times on the earnings call (vs. 36 in February), with 8.8 billion event contracts traded — barely up from 8.5 billion the prior quarter and down from 3.4 billion in January alone. Crypto transaction revenue fell 40% quarter-over-quarter, equities and options down 10%, and the stock dropped 10%. The host argues Robinhood's current valuation — roughly 40x its best-ever net income year of ~$2 billion — requires significant product expansion beyond its 7% user growth to be justified.